Marlene van Niekerk - Triomf

Pop said he knew the answer too, just so Treppie would stop his tapping.

They must shuddup, Treppie said. This wasn’t their exam.

Well, said Pop, in actual fact they were all together in this story after all, so why couldn’t they also be together in the exam? And if the biggest test in anyone’s life was the one they gave themselves, then they were all together in this thing with old Lambert, in sickness and in death, and surely they were allowed to help him a little in life.

Then she had an idea. Let them write down their answers, she said. People thought better when they wrote.

‘Write what?’ Lambert asked.

‘Written examination,’ she said.

‘The answer,’ said Pop.

‘Repeat the question,’ Lambert said, trying to win time. She could see things were going a bit too fast for him.

‘Lambert, it’s easy. The worst thing you can think of that could happen to you,’ Pop said. ‘You know very well what it is.’ Pop wanted to help Lambert, but Treppie gave him a real dirty look.

‘We know what it is,’ she said, just to keep Lambert at ease, ’cause now he’d gotten up and he was starting to get restless.

‘Yes, we know,’ said Pop. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

And what if the answer was wrong, Lambert wanted to know, but Pop said this wasn’t a question of right or wrong, what counted here was consensus. Pop looked long and hard at Treppie to make him understand he had to go easy now. But Treppie acted like he hadn’t seen.

‘Consensus can be wrong,’ he said, taking off his nose and paging through the fridge book. ‘In any case who’s to say if it’s consensus or not?’

Go sit down, she told him then, ’cause it looked to her like he was finished with playing and now he was just looking for trouble.

Yes, sit down, said Pop, they weren’t finished with the exam yet, but Treppie may as well close that book of his now. They didn’t need it any more.

Lambert looked back and forth. He was confused, not about what he had to write, but what would happen when he handed in his answer.

Pop told Lambert to tear a page for each of them out of his exercise book, for Treppie too, so they could all write down what they thought was the worst thing that could happen to him, and what would mean the end of the world for all of them. When they were all finished they had to paste the answers up on the wall. Then they’d see who thought differently from the rest.

She said, yes, and that one was going to get a drubbing. Everyone stared at her ’cause she sounded so dead serious. And while everyone was looking at her like that, she took her chance and added, that person would plug the test!

Lambert just said, hell, Ma, laughing and shaking his head as he tore out the pages. He couldn’t believe she would stand up for him like that. But she always stood up for him when she saw him taking strain. It was mostly Pop who took the pressure, but even more than Pop, it was her who took the strain in the end. Most of the time it was just the two of them, her and Pop, who stood up for each other against those two devils. But Lambert isn’t as much of a devil as Treppie.

During the exam, she’d seen how Lambert’s spirit rose every time he got full marks and she clapped hands for him, and how Treppie was beginning to look silly. She could see it wasn’t just that red nose of his that looked silly. It was him too. He hadn’t realised Lambert could still study a book like that so well.

Now Treppie was acting like he didn’t know what a written exam was. Like he was completely stupid, scratching his head through that clown’s hat of his.

But she and Pop carried on. Pop asked Lambert for his pencil and she asked Treppie for the red ball-point clipped on to the front of his vest.

‘Clips!’ Treppie pulled out his pen, turned it around and passed it over to her carefully, the way he’d normally pass a sharp knife. She couldn’t see what it was he was thinking, but she could guess.

Pop leant on the chair’s arm-rest to write.

She went and wrote at the sideboard. After a while her tongue was sticking out with the effort. She hadn’t written anything in ages, let alone exams.

‘Now the two of you must write,’ Pop said when he was finished. She gave Treppie his pen back. Lambert took the pencil from Pop.

Treppie pretended he was struggling with his answer. He wrote something and then he scratched it out again, and then he’d peep at them from under his hat. After a while he even asked for more paper.

‘Ja,’ she said, ‘not enough studying.’

‘Ja, he hasn’t learnt his lesson in life yet.’ Pop sounded like he was pointing a finger at Treppie.

‘Hmmm,’ said Lambert, ‘and what if his answer’s just wallpaper?’

‘It better not be,’ she said, trying to sound like Pop.

‘No,’ said Pop, ‘not wallpaper, it’d better be consensus.’

‘And peace,’ she said.

Ja, peace, said Pop. They really couldn’t afford anything else.

They waited a long time for Treppie to finish.

Pop stood up and took everyone’s papers. Treppie didn’t want to hand over his. He kept holding it in front of him and looking at it through narrowed eyes. He was still thinking, he said.

He must think and get on with it, she said.

She went and fetched the tape out of the sideboard drawer, where Treppie had put it after sticking the cat’s head back on.

She and Pop pasted theirs and Lambert’s answers on to the wall, next to the picture of Jo’burg.

But Treppie still didn’t want to hand in his paper. By then he’d been writing for longer than half an hour.

‘Last-minute changes,’ he said. He was still scratching things out.

Pop went ahead and read out Lambert’s answer. She looked at the big, round letters as he read. Like the notices people put up at Shoprite, with big writing filling up the whole page.

The biggest Balls Up of all Balls Ups that is the Worst and the End of our Story , it said on top of his answer. And then underneath: that certain people , and then in brackets, (with red noses) , wouldn’t give him his birthday present that they promised him. To hell with them in advance. And, right at the bottom: that is my answer .

Pop signalled that she must read out the next one, which was his. Pop’s writing was shaky, but his shakes were from something other than not writing for a long time.

Pop had written on his paper that Treppie mustn’t raise Cain on Lambert’s birthday , and then there was just and , with a dash.

‘And what?’ Treppie asked. He looked at Pop. ‘So, and , and what?’

‘Too ghastly to contemplate,’ Pop said. He, Treppie, wouldn’t want to hear it. Then Pop read out her answer, in one breath.

The End , she’d written on top. And then: that some people they know who they are break their promises that they know they made and they also know what the promise is. To Lambert. Then all hell will break loose and the graves will fall down into the holes holes holes .

‘You left out the commas and full-stops, Mol,’ Treppie said, but he sounded like he was actually telling her she’d lost her marbles.

By then Lambert had lost his patience. She could see by the way he took one big step towards Treppie, holding out his hand.

Treppie picked his moment. When Treppie holds up his hand for attention, you know he’s not about to miss a chance.

Before he went on to matters of life and death, he said, he first wanted to finalise the formal part of the examination by announcing that this nephew of his, boffin that he was, had passed his Big Fridge Exam with distinction here today, and that he’d held the name of the Benades up high in the process. And hopefully in the future he’d continue holding their name up high. High! Upright! Firm! Strong! Treppie said.